IIL The consbqubnoe of ha visa GrOD fob a Poetion. The life is filled with hope. A man can only hope according to his portion. If his portion is in this world, his hope will have a corresponding character ; whereas if his portion is really in God, his hope will partake of the necessary elevation and fulness of his portion. God takes care that those who are really his should have a feeling in their hearts which makes them look forward to a fixture always better than the present. We are saved by hope. The process is yet far from complete, but it is our right to rejoice that we are in the bands of One who will make salvation complete in his own time. — Y.
Van. 25, 26. — Ood^s goodnesi to ttie hopeful and the patient. God's goodness is one thing ; that it should be made manifest to men so that they may get comfort out of it is quite another. Bad men will never see God to be good. Not being good themselves, not having kindly, generous, and unselfish feelings towards others, they can never come to look upon God from the point of view necessary to get a manifestation of his good- ness. Hence we notice —
I. How God's ooodness appeabs to those behavino themseltes in a bight WAT. About the first thing that is required is to believe that God is good, however much his goodness is concealed, and however trying the experiences of life may be. We must not be contented to say, " Peradventure something good will come somehow." But rather let us say, " The manifestation of the goodness will depend on our making ready for it." We must wait. So to speak, we have to take our turn. When the seed is sown, the harvest must be waited for. God could give us certain good things immediately, but not the best things. The child cannot receive the things of the man. The servant can only get his reward when his service is completed, and that in a worthy manner. Then besides waiting there is seeking. There is no proper attitude towards God without a combination of the passive and the active. God has made excellence in true knowledge the result of strenuous, long-continued effort.
II. The obeat attainment in all tiub of trouble is to have a due minolinq OF HOPE AND PATIENCE. Jehovah cau save, if only we have what may be called spiritual presence of mind. If we say, " I must get rid of my troubles now, or I shall straightway give up the struggle," then, indeed, the prospect of salvation retires to an immense distance. What is wanted is that we should put all our highest interests in the hand of God, and then go quietly about our daily opportunities of serving him. When the passenger goes on board ship at the beginning of a long voyage he puts complete confidence in the captain, and thus he hopes and quietly waits for the voyage to come to an end. Through all perils of the sea he can only hope and quietly wait, knowing that the master of the vessel is the only one who can guard against the perils. And so in the voyage of life; we cannot shorten it, we cannot determine what its circumstances will be ; but we can put ourselves in the hands of the great Guide. He will look after our safety, if we only take heed to our oart ia the
•0 THE LAMENTATIONS OP JEREMIAH. Ioh, lu. 1— 66,
doing of his work. Let silent waiting be our rule. We are very likelj to say foolisl things in our criticism of the Divine ways, and therefore it is well to keep silent. But while we are silent we may think a great deal. That is good advice of the psalmist, " Commune with your own heart . . . and be still." It is through inward question- ings and discontent with received traditions that we are to get at the comfortable truth at last. But if we go on talking we are very likely to discompose and mislead others. The moods in which we are doubting, fearful, and weary, we should do oar very best to keep to ourselves. — Y.
Ver. 27. — The discipline of youth. Remember how early Jeremiah was called to prophesy. He says at the beginning, " Ah, Lord God ! behold, I cannot speak : for I am a child " (Jer. i. 6). He had to bear the yoke in his youth, and doubtless this did much to fit him for a useful and well-controlled life afterwards. The comparison, of course, is plain. An ox might be put under the yoke when quite young, and then, though the restraint would be irksome for a while, at last the sense of restraint would pass away, and the yoke become second nature ; whereas if an ox had never been tried with the yoke until full-grown, the chances were it would not accept it in a docile and serviceable way. There is this difference between the youthful ox and the youthful human being, that the youthful ox is entirely in the hands of his master, while the youthful human being has his own choice. For we do not take the yoke here to mean chiefly the external circumstances of life. The yoke is that which we take upon ourselves, seeing that it is the right and manly thing to do. Self-denial is a yoke. The effort needful in forming right habits is a yoke. The subordination of the present to the future, the lower to the higher, the human to the Divine, is a yoke. Not that we are to leave external circumstances altogether out of the question. Men who had hard times when young have come to be thankful, in after years, for those very hard times. It is better to be an orphan than to be the child of parents who have both the means and the disposition which make them lavishly indulgent. Onlj' bear in mind that external circumstances have not in themselves any disciplining power. The materials of a yoke might be used to make something else. The decision rests with us. One may make a yoke out of prosperity and favourable circumstances, while another so chafes and sulks under adversity as to become worse every day.— Y.
Vers. 31 — 33. — QodCe good purposes in causing pain. All this is the language of hope and continues naturally what is said in vers. 21 and 24. The existence of present trouble presses upon the heart, but along with it there is the confident assur- ance of future deliverance. Observe, then, certain admissions, along with the cheering qualifications which accompany them.